http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
VETERAN POLITICAL REPORTER Joe Klein reminds me a lot
of George Stephanopoulos. Klein, who's examined the
presidential horse race for New York and Newsweek, and
who does so currently for The New Yorker, knows that
he's lost his chops as a pundit. That's why the
periodic, and brief, dispatches he's published in The
New Yorker over the last two years have mostly been
devoid of real content or scoops. It's a wonder editor
David Remnick keeps him on. Then again, considering
that Jane Mayer is still at the weekly, as well as the
almost equally horrid Elizabeth Kolbert, it's hard to
escape the feeling that the Democratic National
Committee is giving Remnick a little on the side.

(I'm
being facetious. I respect Remnick and do believe he's
improved The New Yorker. It's just that he has a
Zabar's blind spot when it comes to politics.)

But unlike other beat political writers who've gone
to seed-say hello to Mary McGrory, Jack Germond, David
Yepsen, Richard Cohen and Albert Hunt, just for
starters-Klein had the good sense, like
Stephanopoulos, to cash in at the right time. His
first novel, Primary Colors, was funny, perceptive and
dead-on about the '92 campaign of Bill Clinton.

Although Klein disgraced himself, much like a
politician, by denying for too long that he wrote the
book-it was attributed to "Anonymous," a clever gambit
that made sales soar-you can't fault the guy for
reviving a career that was sliding downhill. Now,
Klein can toss off the occasional inconsequential
essay, clip coupons from the profits of the book and
movie versions of Primary Colors, and appear on talk
shows. It's a swell life and I applaud his ingenuity.

Trouble is, if you're in Klein's position, how do you
follow up such a buzz-worthy novel? Not very
impressively, in his case, as The Running Mate, a book
about Sen. Charlie Martin (based loosely on Nebraska's
Sen. Bob Kerrey), is mostly a snooze.

Sure, there's
some decent inside political baseball-the sections on
opposition research are hilarious; and the
intertwining of Martin with Primary's Jack Stanton is
entertaining-but mostly it falls flat. Klein can't
write a love scene to save his life, and unfortunately
fully half the book is about Martin's implausible
infatuation with a Manhattan blueblood who doesn't
give a hoot about politics. Nell, who lives with her
children and gay ex-husband on the Lower West Side,
hasn't the stomach for the pancake breakfasts, Kiwanis
dinners and 100-degree picnics in Des Pointes that her
Vietnam hero Charlie has to endure as a glad-handing
pol. She especially doesn't like the Senator's own
advisers digging into her past lives.

It's a drowsy read, so much so that it actually took
me five weeks to finish the book. I'd knock off 10 or
15 pages at a time, but current magazines always
interrupted my finishing it. That wasn't the case with
Primary Colors: I put aside The Weekly Standard,
National Review and even The Progressive and ripped
through the book in two days.

Klein

And while Klein notably broke ranks with Clinton
early in his administration-after, along with the
despicable Sidney Blumenthal, hyping the
Arkansas/Yale/Oxford hayseed shamelessly in the '92
campaign-in The Running Mate he proves that almost
every political writer has a Democratic heart. For
example, in Martin's Senate campaign of '94, he's
defeated by a crass businessman, a hypocritical,
G-d-fearing doofus who Klein implies is a composite of
many of the men and women who were part of the
Republican takeover of Congress in that year.

The reader knows that The Running Mate will be rough
sledding from the very first paragraph, possibly the
worst collection of words that Klein has ever written.
Take a gander at the following and try not to wince:

"The event at the Elks club ended at dusk and they
headed west, into the countryside. She was surprised
by the drama of the terrain-the rolling hills were
steeper than she'd expected, and perfectly
proportionate; the chocolate soil fresh and fecund.

The sun was setting between pilasters of clouds, which
were less delicate than the casual coastal puffs she
was used to; they were bigger, heavier, like the
heroic thuds of mashed potato that had been deposited
on their plates at the Elks. And yet, the sunset
colors were as subtle as the clouds were dramatic; no
pollution-induced fuchsias out here. There were
streaks of canary and tangerine rising to a
robin's-egg blue, then fading into a navy night."

Yes, Joe, there are "real" people who live somewhere
between the two coasts; and damned if they don't say
hello to strangers on the street, fix a tasty bbq
sandwich and haven't the need to lock their doors at
night. Salt of the earth, my friend.

Can you say "condescending"?

Anyway, despite this misfire follow-up to Primary
Colors, Klein, like Stephanopoulos, knew the right
time to get out of his racket and into a more
lucrative profession. The future might not be so
bright for Klein that he's gotta wear shades, but he's
in a far better position than most of the grunts he
used to ride campaign buses and planes with. He was
smart enough to make some real money and not pretend,
like Blumenthal, that he could actually have some
power in government.

MASON FOR MAYOR
The comedian Jackie Mason may look like he's AWOL from
Madame Tussaud's, but he's as biting a political
commentator as anyone who appears on television today.
Read the following exchange from the June 12 O'Reilly
Factor and tell me you wouldn't pay $500 to have
dinner with this guy.

Bill O'Reilly: Here's a key question. Why do so many
New York Jewish people support Hillary Clinton?

JM: And I want to tell you something. Jews are like
married to the Democratic Party just like certain
people are married to the Republican Party. Jews still
remember Roosevelt and they think-still think of the
Republicans as the people that are undermining the
poor, and Jews are always guilt-ridden for making a
living.

Mason

Jews are always guilt-ridden, they're raised
with guilt-oh, my G-d, if I got so rich, it must be my
own fault, I don't deserve it, so they have to
apologize for making money. And every time they make
an extra dollar, they say, I didn't mean to make it,
it fell into my pocket, I don't know how it happened.

BO: Do they get mad at you because you don't like the
Clintons?

JM: Of course they get mad when you don't like the
Clintons.

BO: What do they say to you?

JM: They say to me, how could you dislike the person
who cares so much about people, who does so much for
the underdogs of America, who has such compassion,
such heart, such soul. He has nothing but thievery,
fraud, mayhem, destruction, murder. There is no crime
he could commit-there is no crime, no matter
how-first, they disliked him because-first of all,
even the Democrats who love him, who want him to
maintain his presidency, every one of them admits that
he's a lowlife. You remember the impeachment
proceedings?

BO: Yes, I do.

JM: Every Democrat said, let's be honest about it,
the man is a low-life, a fraud, he ruined the office,
he desecrated the office...

BO: But we still like him?

JM: ...And he desecrated and destroyed every-the man
is the most vulgar, disgusting person. Should he stay
as president? Positively.

BO: Right, you have to do it.

JM: One thing has nothing to do with the other... You
could be the lowest degree of a character on this
Earth, but it has nothing to do with the job. And the
Jews are the same way; if he shot 12 people right now
in the heart, you know what the Jews would say? Who
lives forever? Nobody lives
forever.

JWR contributor "Mugger" -- aka Russ Smith -- is the editor-in-chief and CEO of New York Press (www.nypress.com). Send your comments to him by clicking here.